Comments on: Don’t be normal!

By: Jean

Jean — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:41:15 +0000

I had always thought that you should never base any styles on the Normal style. But Shauna Kelly calls this an urban myth and debunks it.

I found her post very interesting: http://bit.ly/osn01B

I will probably no longer shy away from basing a style on Normal, although I’ll still be very careful in going about it.

Any thoughts on the matter?

Thanks,
Jean

By: Eddie VanArsdall

Eddie VanArsdall — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:02:52 +0000

David, I appreciate hearing someone in our profession advocate for Word. I made my living for years designing Word templates and developing Word macros for organizations. I have always appreciated the fact that Word has built-in scripting and can thus be extended quite a bit. It’s also flexible when interfacing with other apps. I use MadCap Flare a lot these days, and Flare and Word play very well together. Now that I’ve gotten used to Word 2007, I especially like it.

By: Alice Jane E

Alice Jane E — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:13:05 +0000

Thanks for these tips. They are eerily timely for me. Great post and great site, David!

By: janine stein

janine stein — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Thanks for the help with formatting documents.
Now can you help me with following instructions.

By: Cecily

Cecily — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:06:17 +0000

Sorry, I used the wrong word (I no longer have Word 2003). You could “attach” a different template from Tools > Templates and Add-Ins. I didn’t realise the functionality was still in 2007 till I looked just now: as you say, it is well-buried (on the Developer ribbon, which is disabled by default). It was more trouble than it was worth, so I haven’t missed it in the interim. I wonder if many people do use it?

By: David Farbey

David Farbey — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:05:50 +0000

Adam, Cecily,
Thank you both for your comments. It is possible to modify Word to force users to use a particular template, but to deliver that sort of solution across a corporate environment requires co-operation from different groups which isn’t always easy to achieve.
As for “applying a template”, nothing has changed to my knowledge between Word 2003 and Word 2007, but the process is laborious and the results to say the least are “messy”. You can add a template to make use of autotexts, and use the Organiser (now well hidden in Word 2007) to copy styles and Macros. Most users expect “applying a template” to mean “changing the page layout” and that doesn’t happen in Word 2003 or 2007.

By: Cecily

Cecily — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:48:24 +0000

While I think it’s excellent to make people consider the implications of amending Normal, there are times when I find it useful to do so.

For example, in many templates I want all styles to use the same font, with the possible exception of headings, so changing the font of the Normal style is a useful way to avoid changing it for numerous styles. Then I just have to change it again for Heading 1 and that takes care of the other heading styles.

Incidentally, in Word 2003 you could apply a different template to a document (though the result was often messy); I hadn’t noticed that functionality had been removed in 2007 until I read this post.

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:24:06 +0000

To stop Word from always opening blank docs based on the Normal template, add the /n switch to the shortcut that you’re using to run Word. For example:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\WINWORD.EXE /n.

This will open Word, but without the blank doc. Then, you can choose to create a new doc based on whatever template is appropriate.

Alternately, you can create shortcuts to Word that open blank docs based on a template other than Normal by using the /t switch.

One other thing you can do is to customize your toolbar so that all shortcuts for creating a new doc force the user to go thru the template selection dialog.

By: Nick Gendler

Nick Gendler — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:20:13 +0000

Thanks David, I’ve been using Word for years and never really got my head around dealing with the normal style thing. Templates yes, but not style. I’ll be doing something about that now.

By: Colum McAndrew

Colum McAndrew — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:04:35 +0000

Good advice David. It is SOOO easy to knock Word but for some things it is exactly the right tool for the job.